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BEIJING: The much-feared new cyber-weapon, the 'Superbug', which hasattacked over six million personal and almost 1,000 corporate computersin China has been traced to the US, official media reported today.

The Stuxnet cyberworm can break into computers and steal privateinformation, especially from industrial firms, sending it back to aserver in the United States , state-run Xinhua news agency quoted WangZhantao, an engineer at the Beijing-based Rising International SoftwareCo Ltd , an antivirus service producer in China, as saying.

The super virus made use of a bug in Siemens auto-control systems usedin industrial manufacturing to skip the security check, Wang who hasbeen vastly quoted in the local media for the past few days, said.

The virus can copy itself and spread via U-disk in the network of a company and government.

"Hackers may take control of a company's machinery run under computersinfected by Stuxnet, and give dangerous orders causing serious damage,"he said.

The company has developed softwares to kill the virus, which can bedownloaded for free from the company's official website, he said.

Official media has been carrying reports about the superbug virus forthe past few days said it contained sophisticated malicious software,or malware, believed to be a "new cyber-weapon," which infiltratesmainly factory computers in China threatening the country's nationalsecurity.

The Stuxnet worm was first discovered in mid-June and was speciallywritten to attack Siemens supervisory control and data (SCADA) systemscommonly used to control and monitor industrial facilities - fromtraffic lights and oil rigs to power and nuclear plants, state runGlobal Times daily reported few days ago.

"This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damageindustrial systems, instead of stealing personal data. It willseriously threaten pillar industries in China, which has 420 millioninternet users," Wang said.

"Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, thoseindustries may collapse, which would damage national security," he saidadding that it posed no harm to personal computers or Internet surfers.